was latent: but for my taking my skirt off to allow her to sew the hem, Marylou herself would not have remembered it. Still, it is curiously pleasant to watch someone engaged for one’s benefit on some delicate domestic task: with only formal protest I surrendered the petticoat.
I seem to have given her an unduly rosy picture of life at the Bar. “I wish I’d done something like that,” she said, rather wistfully. “I wish I’d done something valid and meaningful, instead of just getting married.”
I assured her that celibacy was not a prerequisite to practice at the Bar: I suggested, indeed, that a husband might prove a great comfort in those moments of stress and anxiety which are unavoidable in our profession.
“Not if the husband was Stanford, honey,” said Marylou. “Stanford is not the kind of husband who would be supportive to me in a self-actualizing role. Stanford does not care about me as an individual person.”
I said — what else could I say? — that if Stanford did not adore her he was both a fool and a scoundrel; and I could not easily believe so ill of him.
“No, honey,” said Marylou. “He adores the way I look and the way I dress and the way I keep house and the way I organize parties. He does not adore me as a person. He does not care about me as a person. If my husband cared about me as a person, he would not have come to Venice with me and then gone to Verona for the weekend to stay with a business acquaintance.”
She then burst into tears.
I was much distressed by this and did not know what to do. Still, it is common knowledge that those who weep do not wish to do so
It will be clear to you from the foregoing that the reasons for my being on Marylou’s bed in a fairly small quantity of underwear and holding her head on my shoulder were of the most innocent nature imaginable. I do quite see, however, that it was perhaps not the best moment for Stanford, returning from Verona, to walk, without knocking, into the bedroom. The scene was open to misconstruction: from Stanford’s expression it was clear that he misconstrued.
Still, he did not, while I remained present, actually say anything. I was hopeful that by the time we all went down to dinner Marylou would have persuaded him of the absolute purity of her motives and my own. From the way Stanford looked at me over dinner, however, I fear this is not the case. I hope, as I say, that there will be no unpleasantness.
I was so put out by all this that when the Major suggested cutting a rug together some evening I was not immediately able to think of an excuse and have, in principle, agreed.
I excused myself from coffee on the grounds of a headache, seeking in the privacy of my room the consolation of reporting to you the difficulties in which this leaves me
Yours, as always, Julia.
“It does seem extraordinary,” said Ragwort, “if anyone was going to murder anyone, that no one murdered Julia. One’s glad they didn’t, of course.”
CHAPTER 7
It was now very late: even the actors were leaving.
“We’d better go,” said Timothy. “Selena, do you still feel like driving me to Heathrow tomorrow?” It had been arranged, earlier in the week, that Selena should drive Timothy to the airport, arriving there in time to coincide with Julia’s return. The rest of us, thinking to spend in convivial reunion the hours between Julia’s arrival and Timothy’s departure, had intended to include ourselves among her passengers. It was agreed, in spite of the altered circumstances, that these arrangements should stand.
“I say, Ragwort,” said Cantrip. “You know what you said about no one murdering Julia — you don’t think it’s one of those mistaken identity things, do you? I mean, you don’t think someone meant to murder Julia and got the Revenue chap instead?”
I pointed out that to murder, in mistake for Julia, a thin young man with fair hair would require a peculiarly myopic assassin.
“Might have been dark,” said Cantrip. “And we don’t know whose room it happened in — the report just said ‘in hotel bedroom.’ Suppose the chap from the Revenue was in Julia’s bed—”
“That,” said Ragwort, “is a possibility which, regrettably, we cannot altogether discount. But wouldn’t Julia have been there with him?”
“Temporarily absent,” said Cantrip. “In the loo or somewhere.”
“I’m rather doubtful,” said Timothy, “about the timing. You rang the Corkscrew at about twenty past eight, Cantrip. So I take it the news must have been on the teleprinter by quarter past. If the murder happened after dark, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible.”
“Don’t know,” said Cantrip. “Depends what time it gets dark in Venice.”
Timothy paid the bill. We rose to leave.
“By the way,” said Selena, “if you don’t mind, I’d still like to get to Heathrow in time to meet the flight Julia should have come back on.”
“Yes, of course,” said Timothy. “If it turns out she’s on it after all—”
“That, certainly, would be a great relief. But if she isn’t, then I think, you know, in the light of what Cantrip’s just been suggesting, that I’d like to be sure that all the other Art Lovers are.”
It was thus at a comparatively early hour on Saturday morning, considering the lateness of our retirement, that Selena collected me from my borrowed residence in Islington. She had received, but not yet had time to read, a further letter from Julia, evidently posted on Wednesday. She proposed, by reading it aloud, to improve the otherwise idle hours at Heathrow.
Taking my place beside her, I resigned myself to being driven through the traffic of North London at the pace she describes as brisk. Still, we arrived without accident at Middle Temple Lane.
Timothy had already spoken by telephone to Julia’s travel agents. They had confirmed that their customer, Miss Julia Larwood, was experiencing certain difficulties with the Venetian police, but were happy to reassure him that she was not actually in custody: she had merely been asked to surrender her passport and not to leave the Veneto. Arrangements were being made for her accommodation. Relieved, I dare say, to find that they were not solely responsible for the poor creature, they had given Timothy the name and address of their representative in Venice — that was to say, Graziella — and had promised that she would give him every possible assistance in his efforts on Julia’s behalf.
To save Selena an unnecessary detour, Cantrip had offered to make his own way to Ragwort’s house in Fulham, where we would collect them both. It had not been, perhaps, a wholly altruistic offer: Ragwort is known to make excellent breakfasts. Indeed, I had rather hoped — but Cantrip had already finished the scrambled eggs, and Selena did not think we had time for coffee.
Ragwort and Cantrip joined me in the back seat of the vehicle and we continued westwards, Selena negotiating with wonderful insouciance — I suppose that is the expression I am looking for — the series of roundabouts which seems designed to prevent the motorist, once in London, from ever leaving it.
Cantrip had also been making telephone calls. Claiming the privileges of a part-time employee, he had used the information service of the
“In that case,” said Timothy, “the mistaken identity theory must be out of court, mustn’t it?”
“Local time,” said Cantrip. “The Italians are an hour ahead of us. So by London time it would only be seven. And then I rang this chap I know at the news agency and asked how long it would take for a story like that to get on the teleprinter. I said I’d got a bet on about it. And he reckons they’ve got a chap in Venice who’s hot stuff newshound-wise, so once someone called the fuzz it’d be on the wire in an hour or so.”
“Still cutting it fine,” said Timothy.
“Not that fine,” said Cantrip. “Look, the way I see it is this. Friday evening, about quarter to eight Italian time. This American bird and her husband changing for dinner. There’s a row — you know, starting with an argument about who left the top off the toothpaste or something and going on from there. And as you’d expect, Julia’s name crops up. ‘And on Sunday afternoon,’ says Stanford, ‘when I found you and Julia lying on the bed in a
